page_title: Vermejo Park Ranch
section_title: Location and description
hierarchical_section_title: Vermejo Park Ranch / Location and description
caption_attribution_description: English: Big Costilla Peak, taken from along Forest Road 1950 in Valle Vidal, from a scenic viewpoint halfway between Comanche Point and Shuree Ponds. This peak is on private property, and totally off-limits to hiking.
context_page_description: Vermejo Park Ranch is a 590,823-acre ranch owned by Ted Turner in northeastern New Mexico and southern Colorado. The ranch is about three-quarters the size of the State of Rhode Island. The ranch, which stretches from the Great Plains to the summit of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, is used primarily for conservation, hunting, fishing, and other recreation, but also produces significant quantities of coalbed methane, a type of natural gas.
context_section_description: Vermejo Park Ranch, just west of the city of Raton, is the biggest component of Turner's ranch empire of 2,000,000 acres (810,000 ha) that made him the second biggest private landowner in the United States as of 2018.  It lies mostly in western Colfax County, New Mexico, but smaller portions extend into northeastern Taos County, New Mexico as well as southwestern Las Animas County and southeastern Costilla County in Colorado.
  Elevations of Vermejo Park ranch range from 5,850 feet on the Canadian River near Maxwell, New Mexico to Big Costilla Peak which rises to 12,931 feet (3,941 m) on the western boundary of the ranch and the border between New Mexico and Colorado.  Most of the ranch consists of the Park Plateau, part of the Raton Basin, a much dissected tableland with elevations from 6,500 feet (2,000 m) to about 9,000 feet (2,700 m). The westernmost extension of the ranch is in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains with elevations from 9,000 feet (2,700 m) to above timberline. An eight-mile long, north-south ridge with four summits above 12,750 feet (3,890 m) including Big Costilla Peak form the western boundary of the ranch.
  Most of the ranch is drained by the Canadian River and its tributary, Vermejo Creek. The Canadian is part of the Mississippi River drainage basin. A small portion in the western part of the ranch, the East Fork of Costilla Creek, drains into the Rio Grande.  Costilla Reservoir is on the East Fork of Costilla Creek. About 20 lakes, both natural and artificial, are scattered around the higher elevations.
caption: Big Costilla Peak is one of the two highest mountains on the ranch. This photo was taken from the publicly owned Valle Vidal.
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